The final seal rose from the road as Yan stepped between the marked points.
The bridge captain planted his staff at the center of the formation. Blue light ran from its copper head into the stones. The last anchor flared beneath the gate, and the path tightened around it.
Wei’s students shifted their shields to catch the archers’ next volley. One arrow scraped Yan’s sleeve. He kept moving. His arts strengthened him; the arrows and the captain’s seal remained outside threats.
Yan touched the first mark he had placed by the drainage channel. Ashen Marrow steadied his body. He felt its familiar recoil become stronger bone and clearer control. Then he moved to the second point and began Thousand Fractures Core, sending a narrow pulse along the route Mao had traced.
The pulse found the formation line. The blue light bent around Yan and gathered at the third mark.
He understood the joining.
His Dao Domain opened across the ground he had marked. The new realm did not erase the enemy’s seal or make the orchard his to command. It let his practiced methods answer one another over that space. He could move among their effects without losing the control he had earned, and the damaging feedback of his own complete arts became growth before it could injure him.
